Free Species by Yvonne Navarro Page A

weeks.”
    Suddenly Dan leaned forward, his eyes locked on the film. “She’s hiding something.”
    “You’re absolutely correct, Dan.” Dr. Fitch motioned to the technician; a few keystrokes and the film shot became another one of Sil, this time asleep under a blanket. The image stopped for a moment, then began to replay in slow motion. “Watch carefully.”
    For about five seconds nothing happened. Then, concealed beneath the white blanket, something sharp jutted from the girl’s back, its silhouette lean and long, like a pointed spike. In an instant it was gone and the line of her back was smooth again, the normal spinal curve of an adolescent.
    “What the hell was that?” Press demanded. His full attention was on the screen now, his light blue eyes sharp in his handsome face.
    “Rewind the tape,” Stephen ordered. “Run it again.” The technician obeyed and the five of them watched it carefully. Even with image enhancement and stop motion, whatever came out of her back was so fast that all they got was a brown-black blur on the screen. “Watch her face while it’s happening,” the professor pointed out excitedly. “Look at her eyes. She’s undergoing REM—rapid eye movement. She’s dreaming.”
    “A nightmare?” Laura asked. “Maybe what happened was an anxiety reaction to her dream.”
    “Makes me pretty anxious,” Press muttered. His gaze sought Fitch’s and the older man nodded.
    “It had the same impact on the research team, and the result was the decision to terminate the physical experiment until we could conduct further theoretical research. We needed to determine more about what we were dealing with—”
    “No kidding,” Stephen interjected, his eyes bright.
    Dr. Fitch’s expression darkened. “This is what happened when we attempted to terminate the project.”
    The footage shifted into a replay of Sil’s escape and the volume escalated as the computer presented the viewers with full details. “That’s Kyle,” Press said somberly as the security camera showed Fitch’s former assistant sinking to his knees, retching miserably, then toppling forward. “I wondered what happened to him.”
    “This is very bad,” Dan said. “Those people—”
    “Are all dead,” Fitch said.
    “So it—she—got away,” Laura said quietly.
    “It, and yes.” Fitch’s mouth turned down farther and Dan winced openly as the next footage gave the team a gruesome view of a twisted, blood-streaked corpse. “And yesterday morning the body of a transient was found in a boxcar on a siding near Salt Lake City. Preliminary DNA tests indicate the man was killed by our creature.”
    “Nice kid,” Press remarked, pointing to the bottom part of the shot. “Look at the food wrapper next to the man’s body in the lower right of the screen. It’s on top of the puddle of blood—she slaughtered the guy, then stayed next to him and ate his food.”
    “Not exactly a promising start to her tour of the country. Have you found any more bodies?” Stephen asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “You will,” Dan said unexpectedly. All eyes turned toward him, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Her eyes are in front. That makes her a predator. Predators have their eyes in front so they can judge the distance to their prey.”
    Press touched his own eyes thoughtfully, then frowned. “What about the dinosaurs, the ones who were meat eaters? They had eyes on the sides of their heads.”
    “They don’t qualify for modern equations because they’ve been extinct for so long,” Laura answered when Dan looked stumped. “Besides, the dinosaurs were reptiles. In the modern world, Dan is mostly right.”
    “And where did you pick up this information, Dan?” Professor Arden asked.
    “I saw it on a documentary on the Discovery Channel,” Dan responded with a touch of pride. “I thought it was really interesting.”
    “Why did you say he was ‘mostly’ right?” Press asked Laura.
    “I think what Dan picked up from the